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Cultural and Social Environmental Hurdles a Tanzanian Child Must Jump in the Acquisition of Mathematics Concepts

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Mathematics for Tomorrow’s Young Children

Part of the book series: Mathematics Education Library ((MELI,volume 16))

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Abstract

In Tanzanian traditions every adult member of a community was in one way or another a teacher and every child a pupil. When formal education was introduced by colonial powers a gap between the education process at home and that at school was created. Parents and community had nothing to do with the formal type of education process. In particular, mathematics education as it was presented by foreigners was exclusively a white man’s creation and ability. There were absolutely no African indigenous ideas in mathematics education. This made the subject divorced from the children’s reality. Children, teacher. and parents alike found the subject to be unrelated and irrelevant.

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© 1996 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Masanja, V.G.K. (1996). Cultural and Social Environmental Hurdles a Tanzanian Child Must Jump in the Acquisition of Mathematics Concepts. In: Mansfield, H., Pateman, N.A., Bednarz, N. (eds) Mathematics for Tomorrow’s Young Children. Mathematics Education Library, vol 16. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2211-7_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2211-7_12

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-4690-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-017-2211-7

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